Some lovely gardens in New Zealand.

Officially the first day of summer yesterday, here in NZ. It’s cold & raining today. Time for a blog, methinks. Below are a selection of NZ gardens which are open to the public at various times over spring & summer, including my own former historic home in Napier. Some of these are not far from where we live. Rhododendrons grow extremely well in my area, so there are a number of privately-owned rhododendron gardens of national importance within half an hour driving distance. Other gardens are much further away …some in South Island & some in the North Island. They all have one thing in common. They are beautiful.

Photo above was taken at the lovely rhododendron garden in Kimbolton, not far from where I live …..Cross Country Garden …a large market/fair is held here annually.

Above is a graceful colonial farmhouse in Hawke’s Bay region, North Island.

Above is my former home in Napier, which we bought on my return to NZ end of 1998, & sold in 2001. Historic home of Sir Thaddeus McCarthy, a Supreme Court Judge. It sat at the top of Bluff Hill, with magnificent views over the city below & the ocean. Gardens were terraced …lots of hydrangeas & a huge mulberry tree, which has since sadly been chopped down.

Pretty native bird called the Wax-eye (also known as the Silver-eye). This shy small bird visits our garden when the Red Hot Poker is flowering. That is the only time I ever see it.

Above is another photo taken in Cross Country Garden in Kimbolton.

Above is a beautiful colonial home in rural Taranaki. I love the formal yet relatively simple layout of this front area ….& I love the house itself …the same as the house we now live in, but most of our property is at the back. Unfortunately, we have lost the lovely veranda on our house, as someone added two more rooms onto the front, giving the house five bedrooms.

The stunning view from the front door of the house above …in the distance is Mount Taranaki, an volcano which has recently been quite active.

Just beautiful,Dwyllis..and like G.mage,I love the pots all placed to show them at their best,among the gardens..That 3rd pic of the Mountains is a beauty too..I could have been a neighbour of yours,if I hadn't chickened out of taking up one those assisted £10 passages in the 60's...I had a job to go to in Wellington..ah,well..it wasn't to be ...but lovely to see more of your wonderful country on here :o)

What an enormous house ! I have been in some of the 'rabbit hutches' being built here. There was space in the living room for a settee backed up to the wall, no space for a coffee table, plus the T/V in the corner. Thats all.
It was really a corridor.
Young people are buying these houses. I had to walk in front of the settee to get through to the kitchen.
I bought my flat because it was built in 1938 with rooms much bigger than some houses I have been in on private housing estates, with bedrooms just big enough for a bedroom suite, if you walked round the bed. (I used to do Meals on Wheels.)

Thankyou everyone. We do have some very lovely gardens in NZ, but up to recent years, people have concentrated mainly on their front gardens. The back garden area has usually been left relatively bare, apart from lawn, fruit trees, decks, & perhaps some flower borders around fence lines. Nowadays, many people are developing large back gardens, with lots of trees, pathways, arches, climbers, roses & perennials. So we are seeing a move away from bare back areas, given over to dogs & children, to spaces which are both beautiful & utilitarian. I really do need to get some trees into our large back garden, as ours has never had much done to it at all. Once my back problem has been dealt with, I can't wait to get out there!

It was a big house, Diane. When we bought it, it was just the ground floor with five bedrooms plus very big drawing room & big morning room. And there was a storeroom beneath the house, but with no access from within the house. So we had a two bedroomed self-contained flat put in beneath the house, with stairs from it up into our main hall ...this was put in for my brother, who retired early from his job in London after his wife passed away. Then we had the massive roof lifted & three bedrooms with en-suites put into that enormous loft space, & a very fancy staircase leading up to them. On the ground floor we converted one of the bedrooms into a big bathroom, but everything else stayed the same. For a year we had a team of men hammering, sawing, & making a huge mess, every day of the week, but thankfully we had time off at weekends. The gardens were supposed to be open to the public that first year, but there was a massive pile of rubble where the lovely gardens had been on the top level of the property, so that didn't happen!

Thankyou Dwyllis, its been grand looking at all the lovely gardens, although we`ve had sunshine again today, its much too cold here to stay outside for long, I`ve only ventured as far as the compost bin, so at least I was warm whilst strolling around with you,lol........

Loved viewing these photos Dwyllis ... our son-in-law spent a couple of years working in NZ prior to meeting our daughter and would not hesitate to return ... I have to say it looks stunning ... thanks for sharing these photos ... :o)